Treasury bill yields were slightly higher at Monday’s auction, with an earlier government report of a budget surplus in April tempering the impact of lower demand for short-dated debt papers.
The Bureau of the Treasury awarded the entire P15 billion offered at the auction—P5 billion for each of the 3-, 6- and 12-month T-bills.
Total tenders at Monday’s auction reached P38.3 billion, lower than the P59.3 billion in total bids last week.Yield on 91-day T-bill slipped to 5.719 percent from last week’s 5.712 percent while that for 182-day debt paper rose 5.886 percent from 5.864 percent.
For 364-day bills, the average rate increased to 6.043 percent from 6.007 percent.
The government earlier reported a budget surplus of P42.7 billion in April, 36 percent lower compared to the surplus of P66.8 billion in the same month last year as public expenditures accelerated 32 percent to P494.5 billion. From January to April, the budget deficit widened to P229.9 billion from P204.1 billion in the year-earlier period.
